


The Field Where I Died

by 30xf



Series: 201 Days Of X Files [77]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:26:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/30xf/pseuds/30xf





	

Scully was in the middle of her at home bedtime rituals when the phone rang. She was just getting her pajamas on, but hadn't put on her green face mask yet. She answered on the second ring, pinning the receiver between her ear and her shoulder so she could finish buttoning up her shirt. "Hello?" She used her normal phone voice on the off chance it was anybody but Mulder.

"You really wouldn't change anything but the fluke man thing?" Mulder's voice was low, and a little gravelly. He'd just woken up from an unplanned nap, and was still sprawled out on his couch. A dream of their most recent case with Scully playing the part of Melissa Riedal prompted his immediate call to her upon waking.

"I don't think you want to pull at that thread," she answered, the smirk evident in her voice. She heard Mulder chuckle through the phone. "What would you change?" she asked, pulling her hair into a loose ponytail.

He thought hard about it for a minute, sitting up in the relative darkness of his apartment and conservatively stretching out his back. "Well, I would definitely change that fluke man thing, seeing as how I was the one who had to crawl around in the sewer."

Scully nodded, putting the kettle on the stove to boil and placing a chamomile tea bag in a mug. "Doing an autopsy and suddenly having a fluke worm appear was no picnic, but I guess you got the shit end of that stick," she said, unabashedly smiling at her own joke.

Mulder gave a genuine laugh before turning serious. "Do you think you've already met your soul mate, Scully?" 

If their relationship had ever hinted at anything more than a deep friendship, she'd think he was fishing. But she heard the genuine curiosity in his voice. Still, her natural inclination was toward avoidance, "Considering most of the people I know--I certainly hope not." She paused for a moment, not waiting for a laugh, but waiting to see if he'd prod her. When he didn't, she asked, "Do you?"

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "You mean Melissa Riedal?" He pulled the file folder from the middle of the table and opened it. Right on the top were the two pictures Scully found in the hall of records, his and Melissa's supposed former selves. He looked them over carefully, waiting for her answer.

Scully shrugged, pouring her tea. She'd never believed in soul mates, necessarily. But she also knew Mulder couldn't just have been making up everything he said while under hypnosis. "Maybe...I don't know," she finally allowed.

Mulder sighed again and tossed the pictures back on the table. He sat back on the couch and rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes. In the past, the thought had crossed his mind, in a vague sort of way, that perhaps Scully was his soul mate. Not in any romantic sense, but in the most basic way. He thought maybe that's why this case shook him up so much. How could someone--Melissa Riedal--be his soul mate in this life if they were just meant to meet in passing? "I don't know either." He sounded defeated.

She had been processing a theory on soul mates since they returned from Tennessee, and the tone of his voice prompted her to share it with him. "I've been thinking about this whole soul mate/past life thing."

"Oh, have you now?" Already he perked up.

"Not to say I believe in either thing, mind you."

"Of course," he allowed, waiting for her to continue.

"So if we have all these past lives," she mused, curling up on her couch. "And if this theory about meeting the same souls in each of them is true..." She laid down, looking at nothing in particular as she gathered her thoughts. "What if you're wrong about having only one soul mate?"

Mulder's brain processed her words as one sometimes processes the prose in a good book. As such, it took a second for him to catch up. "I'm wrong?"

"Yeah," she sat up, his interest in her theory spurring her on. "I mean, disregarding the unrealistic nature of the entire concept of past lives, doesn't it seem pretty unrealistic that of all the souls in the world--even if we continually meet the same ones--that we'd have the same soul mate in each different life?"

He perked up at that, finally fully awake since his nap. He had been so caught up in his own theory, and the thought that his soul mate in this life was already taken from him, that he hadn't stopped to consider other theories. And he liked this one. "You know...you've got a point, Scully."

She didn't respond. She simply took a sip of her tea, satisfied that she'd changed the direction of Mulder's thoughts.


End file.
